In the mid-twentieth century, Clare W. Graves taught psychology at Union College in Schenectady, New York. There he developed an epistemology model of human psychology. Graves claimed that the inspiration for so doing came from undergraduate students in his introductory psychology courses. He acknowledged that he was unable to answer the frequently-asked question as to who, from among the many competing psychology theorists, was ultimately "right" or "correct" with their model, since there were elements of truth and error in all of them.

Graves created an epistemological theory that he hoped would reconcile the various approaches to human nature and questions about psychological maturity. He collected pertinent data from his psychology students and others (in total a diverse group of around 1,065 men and women aged 18 to 61) in the seven years from 1952 to 1959.[1] He gathered conceptions of the mature personality and conducted batteries of psychological tests using recognized instruments. His analysis of this data became the basis for a theory that he called, among other titles, "The Emergent Cyclical Levels of Existence Theory" (ECLET).

Graves theorized that in response to the interaction of external conditions with internal neuronal systems, humans develop new bio-psycho-social coping systems to solve existential problems and cope with their worlds. These coping systems are dependent on evolving human culture and individual development, and they are manifested at the individual, societal, and species levels. He believed that tangible, emergent, self-assembling dynamic neuronal systems evolved in the human brain in response to evolving existential and social problems. He theorized "man's nature is not a set thing, that it is ever emergent, that it is an open system, not a closed system." This open-endedness set his approach apart from many of his contemporaries who sought a final state, a nirvana, or perfectibility in human nature. His inclusion of the bio-, psycho-, social, and systems theory as vital co-elements also described an inclusive point of view that continues developing today.

Graves' work observes that the emergence within humans of new bio-psycho-social systems in response to the interplay of external conditions with neurology follows a hierarchy in several dimensions, though without guarantees as to time lines or even direction: both progression and regression are possibilities in his model. Furthermore, each level in the hierarchy alternates as the human is either trying to make the environment adapt to the self, or the human is adapting the self to the existential conditions. He called these 'express self' and 'deny self' systems, and the swing between them is the cyclic aspect of his theory. Graves saw this process of stable plateaus interspersed with change intervals as never ending, up to the limits of the brain of Homo sapiens, something he viewed as far greater than we have yet imagined.

To understand entrepreneurship and leadership, Dr Dave Robinson has integrated Beck and Cowan (Graves' theories) with ethics and organizational psychology models to create the Personal and Corporate Values Journey 'PCVJ' diagram (1998). After several decades of research, Robinson goes further in his phenomenological approach to tie it to several other cultural, business, and logical paradigms (mainly within entrepreneurial business environs) and suggests leadership tools for communication and growth of subordinates and self, linking heavily to Gravesian interpretations. The PCVJ was first presented academically at the 2007 AGSE conference [1].

In more recent developments, in 2013 cultural economist Said E. Dawlabani, a close associate of Don Beck used the Graves theoretical framework and his own experience with Beck to apply the theory to a culture-wide model in the field of economics in his book MEMEnomics: The Next-Generation Economic System

A number of companies have created and marketed assessments. Graves himself, however, never built a test for his theory and doubted that a simple, valid instrument could be constructed to measure levels of psychological development accurately. His objective was to understand how people think and not just to categorize the things they think about or value. Christopher Cowan, who has edited and published works by Graves and publishes ClareWGraves.com believes that assessments tend to be momentary snapshots, whereas this theory is based on a wave-like moving picture with many uncertainties.[citation needed]

Graves' work outlines emergent stages rather than personality types which can be present at any stage. Some theorists[who?] may confuse Graves' "vertical" emergent stages with personality traits that they may associate with a particular stages. Christopher Cowan believes[citation needed] that many students miss the underlying theory altogether and concentrate, instead, on its artifacts.